
Glass U^^J 



Book 



5x / 



V 



^^^' "^ 



U' u U 



A DISCOURSE 

On the tei^rible, irresistible yet sublime logic of eyents as stifjgested by the assas^inatiocf 

of President Lincoln, and the attempted avssassination of Secretary Seward ; 

delivered in the UnivL-rsalist Church, Ripon, Wis., Sunday 

Evening, April 23d, 1865, 

By Rev. R. S. SANBORN. 



RiPON, April 24, 1865. 
Rev. B. S. Sanborn, 

Dear Sir: — We. the undersigned, believ- 
ing that the widest publicity possible, should 
be ffiven to the sentiments contained in your 
discourse of Sunday evening last, on the sub- 
ject of our national mourning, respectfully 
solicit you to furnish a copy of the same for 
publication. Trusting that you will cheerfully 
comply -with this request, we remain 

Very Respectfully Yours, 
H. T. Henton, G. W. Bellinger. 
John S. Horner, Gilbert L.\ne, 
J. M. DeFrees, Wm. J.\ckson, 
G. E. BUSHNELL, A. R. Egoleston, 
B. Pratt, C. F. Dodge, 

A. E. Stevens, J Irving, 
And 50 others. 

■ Rii-ON, April 27, 1865. 
To H. T. Henton, John S. Ilorncr, J. M. De- 
Frees, G. E. Bushnell, and others: 
Gentlemen: — More out of ^deference to 
your expressed wish than any special merit 
which I consider my discourse to contain, 1 
consent to its publication. 

yours for Justice and Truth, 

R. S. Sanborn. 



"Siirely , tbo wrath of man shall praise Thee ; tlie rc- 
Hiauider of wrath slielt Tlioii restrain:' TsALMS 76; 10. 

I offer no apology for the words which 
1 may speak at this hour, other than to say 
that during a ministry of twenty-four years, I 
yave never delivered a strictly political ser- 
mon, for in the most common usage of the term, 
I have not, at any time of life, been a politi- 
cian — I have not, ir. a public manner, entered 
into piolitical discussions, though I have watch- 
ed closely the great ciirrent events, and thrcp 
or four tinies voted, when great and important 
political issues were at stake. And now, but 
for the occurrence of the terrible tragedy at 
AVashington, I might have remained a silent 
sjjectator of strictly political affairs. 



But to-night let mo tell you, that in times 
like these, and with an event occurring so 
heinous in its nature, and with principles and 
passions at work so wicked as to cause the 
murder of the nation's chief magistrate, that 
silenee is sin! for he who has eyes to sec, ears 
to hear, a tongue to utter, or a soul to feel, 
and a will to determine, .should employ every 
faculty of which he is possessed, in giving force 
and power to denounce, n'ot onlytUe lioniide 
act or assassination itself, but also to cru.sh the 
damning wrongs and principles which instiga- 
ted, planned and executed the foul deed. No 
such malignant and dastardl;^ act could have 
been perpetrated, unless a more infamous 
principle were found: lying back of it as tlie 
procuring cause. Years of the festering gan- 
grene of injustice and national sinning, cul- 
minated in tha.b malignant and deep dyed 
crime! It was the bolt of the red lightnings 
accumulating in the moral and political at- 
mosphere of years of wrong; and as it fell, its 
crashing and crushing force was to rend the 
black cloud in which it had gatliej-ed, though 
it smites the national heart with a greater 
woe, so that from out its agony, the healer and 
purifyer might come and do for you and me, 
and this -nation, what had so great a n«ed to 
be done. God nt'ver permits the wickedness 
or wrath of man, or men, or nations, to get 
beyond His control, and He never will. 

One week ago to-day— while at a distance 
from home in the country, to attend the fu- 
neral of a soldier, I first received the in- 
telligence of the startling fact; and I doubt 
not that iny experience, at the tihie, was like 
tliat of yours, and of millions of others, who 
were aflectcd more deeply, and agitated more 
powerfully, than ever before. First there 
came an astonishment! an overwhelming sur- 
prise ! and our credulity refused an assent to 
the terrible news, for we could noi believe 
that so fiendish an act could possibly have 
taken place ! But as a conviction of the fact 



A^' 



increased upon us, surprise gave place to a 
tlirill of horror! the very blood seemed to cur- 
dle in our veins! a feeling of suffocation nnd 
oppression, like anijihtmiire, pressed us down! 
then Cfinie a soul sickening and deathly faint- 
ness, and for a luomeut our hearts seemed still 
in their throbbings! a tempest had burst upon 
us from out a clear sky of rejoicing — when 
peace had just begun to smile as sunlight at 
the dawning of day! 0, what a stroke of 
mingled, startling, thrilling, intense feelings 
and emotions! Never before, in my experi- 
ence, did I feel the weight of so great and 
terrible a grief; never came there such a 
blinding and staggering of faith in our common 
humanity. And did you and I, and thousands 
of others, not ask ourselves, can it be that this 
land of ours contains such a demon as the 
assassin? Can it be that the light of the nine- 
teenth century shines upon so dark and guilty 
a soul? Or has the world rolled back into the 
dark ages — back into the old barbarisms — 
back, far back of the christian age? It seemed 
next to impossible that such a deed, so mali- 
cious in all its bearings, so heinous in its 
connections, surroundings and details, could 
take place at the nation's capital, in this land 
of common schools and boasted christian civil- 
ization. What an hour of bitter national ex- 
perience! How solemn the moments, as tho" 
the hand on the dial of time had commenced 
to move backwards! But it was a pang and a 
throe of national deliverance! Days, months 
and years were compressed into the hour; and 
as the horrid facts burned like hot iron into 
the very depths of our consciousness, there 
next came to our experience a corresponding 
burning indignation: a most righteous deter- 
mination, swelling and surging like ocean 
billows in a storm — too great and vast to be 
allied to, or partake of the spirit or leeling of 
revenge, but a nobler, stronger, clearer, more 
intense — a twenty million power of the national 
soul at white heat! swearing in its just and 
righteous sense of justice, that the foul wrong 
and insult shall be expiated in wiping out the 
detestiible spirit and principles which begat 
the deed, and that a national regeneration 
shall sweep away every vestage of slavery's 
curse! Then the sacred oath was registered 
by millions of souls all over the land, that by 
God's help and their vigilant endeavor, the 
assassination shall have a trumpet tongue to 
execrate itself, and blast as with lightning 
flame, the black treason, and wicked cause 
■which planned and executed the infernal plot. 
Never have the American people been stirred 
clear down iuU) the vast depth of their thought, 
disgust and abhorrence of wrong, as by this 
assassination, wliich did not aim its murderous 
weapons simply upon Abraham Lincoln and 
the Secretary of State, but which was meant 
to be the assassination of human rights; a 
murder of free government, and an intimida- 
tion and menace to all future occupants of the 
phairs of state, that they must bow to the be- 
bestfl of the slave tyranny or die! 



Now we ask, in thunder tones of inquiry, 
has it come to this, that henceforth, rn our 
government, the assassin's dagger is to rule 
or luin? Shall dark conspirators, with mur- 
rier in their hearts, and murder reeking from 
their hands, be the power behind the nation's 
life, ready to take that life when the votes of 
the people and the national legislation will 
not go at their bidding? No, never! and 
millions of men say to-night, no, never! 

And so it is that we have not felt till now,. 
irhat traitors arc and n-hai treason isf Now we 
know and feel that we have plunged to the- 
bottom of the seething, boiling cauldron of 
rebellion, and seen its dregs muddy with cor- 
rupted sonls ripened for darkest and most 
infamous deeds. Now we probe the foul dis- 
ease of slavery to the core; now we compre- 
hend the spirit of fiendishness which it engen- 
ders — wo see its boasted honor, chivalry and 
bravery, culminated in cowardice too craven 
for tongue to utter, too low. vile and venom- 
ous for words to namef There is no feature 
of courage in such deeds as th«' assassin com- 
mits. There may be a nerve to strike, but a 
loathsome coward is the murderer; the most 
execrable of all the wretches which the earth 
contains. The duellist may have th.e semb- 
lance of bravery — the villain who robs you in 
the light of day, or says to you beforehand, 
"prepare to defend yourself, for you or 1 must 
die," may have a spark of manliness — the 
venomous rattlesnake which gives wrning 
before it strikes with its tooth of poison, is 
more brave, more generous, and more entitled 
to be above the list of the meanest things and 
creatures, than that consummation of all cow- 
ardice and meanness combined, the assassin, 
who gives his victim no warning, but murders 
more stealthily than the thief steals. Did 
secession employ the emblem of a venomous 
snake to illustrate the warfare which it would 
wage? that was an outrage on the poisonous 
reptile — a clear slander of his nature; for 
there is no creature which crawls or creeps on 
the earth, so vile and cowardly as the assassin, 
who strikes his dagger in the hour least sus- 
pected, and without warning to the victim of 
his rage. But Booth and his co-workers in 
murder are not all the cowards in this coward- 
ly work; each and all of the abettors, all of 
the originators, all the vile miscreants who 
countenanced or planned the scheme, are 
more cowardly and loathsome than he who 
done the deed, I have been told that there 
are persons in our midst who rejoice over and 
approve the act. This I cannot believe; 1 
have not heard any such expression from any 
tongue, and I cannot think that anywhere in 
our midst such a specimen of depravity is to 
be found. (A voice in the audience — "I do.") 
Well, I do not; but I say if there are any who 
rejoice over the deed, and in the spirit of its 
malignity exult, then such vile creatures are 
less than human, and are even more craven, 
more cowardly and mean than Booth himself, 
and I have no language adequate to express 



3 



their meahuess, or the punishment which they 
deseive. I tell you that the people unil the 
nation are at a M'hite heat of righteous indi;^- 
nation against this dastardly act whicli has 
lacerated millions of souls, as well as the na- 
tional feelings, and now it is time for all trait- 
ors to beware! and take full warning, for the 
day of reckoning is come, and the great, tor- 
tured and bleeding heart, of the people will no 
longer bear the insult heretofore borne. The 
great conspiracy against, justice, liberty and 
free government has become too hideous and 
loathsome to be longer endured — it has emit- 
ted too much of its pestilent breath of vileness 
for men of any .pretensions to decency or 
■manhood, to be fOflnd, or known to have sym- 
pathy with it. 

The rebellion "has now no masks to screen 
its hideous feat,ures — all pretenses for the 
revolt are gone by the board, and it is appa- 
rent and patent to all men, that, nothing but 
a deep seated hatred of free government, free 
institutions and just laws, and a satanic and 
Djal'ignant pride of caste — a despising of hon- 
est labor and laborers, and a determination 
on the part of the leaders of the rebellion, to 
set up a despotism more contemptable than any 
which the world has seen; and if need be, to 
employ the most diabolical and unhallowed 
Tmeans to accomplish their ends. All this the 
assassination makes more certain than ever; 
and that the loading rebels are too deep-dyed 
in infamy to retain, any longer, one spafk of 
eympathy from the civilised world. 

Was tliere begisniog to be felt some senti- 
ment of commisse^-at on for the baffled and 
beaten legions of the Confederate army? was 
there begi^ining to be inaugurated a move- 
ment of leniency towards even the leaders in 
tlieir great crime of treason ? Let me tell 
you that they have dashed the proft'ered chal- 
ice to the ground — that they have assassineted 
and murdered the common feelings of com- 
misseration which the victorious might feel for 
the vanquished, by this las*, act of crowning 
brutality and cowardice. They have mur- 
dered their benefactor and well wisher, and 
smote with inhuman vengeance the benevo- 
lence which would have mitigated their just 
deserts, and saved to them something of the 
privileges which they had forfeited forever. 
The deed is done, which seals with irresista- 
ble fiat the doom of slavery — and you and I 
know how accursed and accursing is its power! 
I have never been known as an abolitionist 
according to its most radical sense; but now, 
I tell you my iiearers, that I am, in every 
sense, ^ill through and through; and that my 
seatiments and feelings are those of thousands 
who, up to the moment of this assassination, 
might have been only inditt'erently so, or j 
somewhat inclined to think that shivery should , 
be let alone. The most cursing power ofl 
slavery has been its crushing force on the 
poor whites of the South, whom it has cheated 
of education — of genero.l intelligence; whom | 
it has robbed of even the chance of rising 



into the condition and privileges of progress- 
ive manhooil — whom it has made the subserv^ 
ienl, cringing, ignorant, tools for villains to 
mould and handle as they have in this war— 
and whose condition has ever been below that 
of the slaves themselves. yes, it has cursed 
the slave holders too I It has made them the 
wicked outragers of all that is sacred and 
humane; it has sucked out their humanity, 
till they could starve, insult, and murder their 
prisoners without one feeling of pity or 
remorse. It has vanquished all honor — and 
seared, as with poisonous simoon breath, the 
common sense, common honesty, and respect 
for decency, on the part of those who have 
been the slave owners and man sellers for 
years. And it may be that such a withering 
crime against God and man, had need to be 
burned out as with fire ! and that only through 
the pangs of this terrible hour of national 
calamity and grief, can the nation be born 
into a new and higher life. Now not only 
the blacks shall be free, but a greater eman- 
cipation than Lincoln proclaimed shall take 
place ! the white race of the South shall be 
set free! They, too, except the leaders in 
this rebellion reserved to be punished, shall 
find a deliverance greater than that of the 
Israelites out of Egyptian bondage— though 
through the red and more crimson sea of blood 
lies their pathway to the promised land. I 
for one, my hearers, have no feelings of 
revenge to-night— I pity as God's angels may 
pity, the great masses of the poor white people 
of the South, and I might not go for the 
hanging of .lefferson Davis, and his colleagues 
in crime, if they will lay down their arms and 
surrender on unconditional terms; but if it be 
necessary to crush out the hydra-headed 
monster of secession, slavery and wrong, 
then let them all hang till they are dead ! and 
all the people ssiy^ Amen ! I tell you for one, 
I have declared that my speech, my reason, 
my intluence, shall be used and go forth 
against any and every sysiem of wrong and 
oppression, and that my life shall be a life of 
endeavor to crush out and put down whatever 
conspires against the rights and privileges of 
my race, whether they be white or black, 
rich or poor, or in whatever country they may 
have been boi'n. I have no doubt but a like 
resolve has come to millions of souls within 
the week that is past — a seven days, multiplied 
by seventy in intensity of experience and 
determination for the just and the right. 
Never has liberty and equal human rights 
loomed up so gloriously as in this hour— as in 
this time of our nation's mourning and grief. 

Athwart the dark cloud-storm arches 
the "bow of promis-?," betokening that the 
deluge of injustice shall no more drown the 
consciences of the ruled and the rulers of this 
land; but that the whole Continent of Ameri- 
ca shall emerge from out the deep, turbid 
waters of all slavery, monarchy, and aristo- 
cratic rule; and that a glorious democracy, 
purified, washed and made clean as the x'obcs 



of the saints in the apoc;ilyptic vision, shiill 
be the force, the law, and the air of jrovcni- 
ment for all coniinj^ time ! This is the irre- 
sistible anil sublime logic of the events now 
transpiring; and which conies to us a glorious 
baptism of new faith, for Thou, God, art 
making and shall make, "the wrath of man 
to praise Thee, and the remainder of wrath 
shalt Thou restrain.'' 

I am not one of those wlio divorce the Deity 
from the affairs of men — God is sometimes in 
the whirlwind directing the storm. The right 
hand of His power grasps all terrible events, 
and with them smites the power of evil — He 
disappoints the wickedness of the wicked, and 
takes them in their own snare. And so it is 
that the murderer cannot go where his murder 
shall not find him out ! No place or people 
shall afford him asylum or safe retreat; and 
if he shall escape the V'gilance or vengeance 
of men, yet justice will espy and find him: 
and not only he who done the deed, but those 
who planned and conspired shall get their 
flill deserts; their own wrath shall come upon 
them to the uttermost, and with swift and 
terrible recoil ! This is the terrible ,l,ogic of 
the event — while the sublime and irresistible 
conclusion also comes, that to the eye of God 
and angels there might have been seen the 
need' of all this grief and sorrow, as a storm 
of purification, which shall remove the films 
from the jaundiced vision of so many hitherto 
morally or mentally blind. 

Had there already, been offered the sacrifice 
of half a million of precious lives — has nearly 
every house and home in our land become a 
slirine of grief and mourning for those who 
have starved in prisons, died in hospitals, or 
fallen in battle? Even these may not have 
brought the people far enough along to 
measure, with truest perception, the great 
cause for which they were contending. Even 
these had not lifted the veil and clearly 
revealed all the dark workings and plottings 
of the great curse; and so there was permit- 
ted another offering of the nation's noblest 
representative man, to establish and glorify 
the nation's central principle and truth of self 
government, ihe pcoplt ruling and ruled bi/ the 
people, which is to-day, and shall be right 
onward apd ever, the vital current of our 
national life. 

There shall go out from this crowning act 
of treason, an irresistible force against trea- 
son, smiting it; for all along the line of the 
ages such has been tli-e conflict between right 
and wrong, the true and the false, tljat each 
martyr's tjiood has helped to consecrate the 
good cause for which they, have died, while 
recoiling wickedness has smote itself by the 
stroke of death which it would inflict on w^l^at 
it opposed. No grand forward march has 
been taken, but what has received the bap- 
tising blood of the heroes of the furemost 
ranks! Any hoary sin and wrong dies hard, 
and prows more sjiitcful and venomous in the 
last throes of its struggle with death. Did 



the crucifycrs of Christ suppose that they 
could crucify Christ'.s truth ? Doubtless they 
thought thus. So have all the persecutors of 
right and righteousness malignantly dreamed. 
But lo! their dreams have vanife'hed — God's 
truth, and all the principles born of it, never 
die ! — each martyr consecrates them anew, 
while a thousand bands of evil which have 
crucified and opposed have been broken 
forever. When will the men who oppose the 
just, the true, and the right, learn the great 
lessons which history reads to them from her 
voluminous records? Could not the plotters 
of this rebellion see that a war for the wrong 
woiild be a crushing power for the wrong ? 
Had they not all along felt the crumbling 
forces of the earthquake which was shaking 
down the walls of that institution founded on 
the chattelism of human, bodies and souls? 
Did tliey not see in the unparalleled and 
darkest of ail conspiracies to assassinate the 
President and his Cabinet, (for they an- 
nounced weeks agqi.hat the world would soon 
be startled by a new mode of wai'fare, and be 
astonished at what would soon take place,) 
that their malignity would be their weakness, 
and that their own venom would be their own 
poison ? No, they did not see. Fiendish 
malignity is always blind. It has no eyes of 
piophetic seeing: it always o'erleaps itself. 
Wrong has no cool, calm head of reasoning; 
but it has the headlong rush to ruin ! Hell 
rages; but God reigns ! Right is patient, 
trusting, believing, and has a vital curi^ent of 
immortality; and though in its conflicts with 
evil, it seems sometimes to be vanquished, 
when lo ! a hand moves througli the smoke 
and carnage of battle, and there it is seen, 
radiant as an angel of God, unconquered' and 
unharmed. 

Ever since the rebellion fired the first gun on 
Samter, it has been pulling down its own house 
on its own head — it^^■, cruelty to its own people 
has helped to doif-^its starving of Union pris- 
oners has helped to do it — it? fiendish acts and 
wanton outrages conspicuous in every depart- 
ment of its operations, have been its suicidal 
mad thrusts at its own vitals; and never have 
these facts, the terrible and irresistible logic of 
events, been more fully demonstrated than in 
this crowning act of ferocity, wherein a giant 
tyrauviy rcaclies ^ut its withering hand for one 
more stab at liberty bofore it expires. Ancjr 
now, Oh ye plotters ! ye blind seliciner.'< ! yo 
darlisouled liatcrs of ju:^tice ; 'secret conclaves 
of treason ; ye seal your own doom, 'hud get for 
yourselves and the cause you represent, not only 
the c.xecrati<:^n of all noble minds and gciodmeu 
the wide world over, but in comins; time, the 
niitions and people yet unborn shall read jour 
liistory and detest you, while what you Lave 
warred aguiusl, and tried tuMOvortiirow, shall 
iivo, more gloriously bright and strong us wave, 
chases wave, duvvi,i to the last one that shall 
break on the shoreij (pf .tii!:e 1 ,. 

Had the slave power in the South been con- 
tent to have remained in a jjcucel'ul atcitnde a 
little longer, then ndght the jiqjiod of its life 
been correi-poudii)gly coutinueil; but now it difcs 



by its own roucl plirenzy— dicshy its own suici 
dill liand. What a singular' l))indiiess was that, 
when the slave tyranny rebellecl'for tyranny, 
and struck the first blow, against liberty, as the 
aggressive force. Theie js no parallel to this in 
the history of the worlcl,, or even approximate 
ip the annals of all [^iasf time. Had. llie slaves 
risen in rebellion against their musters, and the 
Tpasters used their force in putting such rebell- 
ion down, then might there have been sonio- 
thing of respect and symi)atliy, even for the 
slave powei, in it's war ofsclt defense against 
rebellion. Or.ha'd the pour, white population 
rebelled _ against the aristocracy which held 
them, and ever lias, in a mental, moral and 
social degredatioi^, below the blaclis, even then 
this' aristocracy, acting in self defense, luiglit 
natura.ly enough have i'ought such rebellion 
with a large chauco.for succcas; and jjossibiy 
the sympathies of a large riumber of even good 
men, might have remained on the side of law- 
ful and, constituted authority. Or if the free 
North had commenced the war Upon the South, 
and souglit by force of arms to exterminate 
slavery or divide the Union, then, too, might 
the slave power and tbe slave fetates, acting on 
the dcfcDiiive. had some ju'st'ce on their side, 
and possibly might have conquered or held their 
own. B.ut how absolutely the reverse of all tliese 
conditions and circumstances stand the case. 
The slaves have UQt rebelled agujnst their mas- 
ters— the poor whites have not rebelled';' iigaiiist 
the aristocracy— the South has not trie tl, to save 
the Union against the efforts of the Korth to 
break it up ; buf slavery has rebelled against 
Freedom, and wrong, ,unprov(.ikcd, struck Ja 
blow for wrong, ;uid dared the right, and in- 
sulted it ; and ^aid to all the world, we hate 
freedom, we hate, even an alliance with it, we 
will not live under the samp flag— evcu its de- 
mocracy whicii we' have'niade a pretense of aid- 
ing and respecting, we now abiise. In God and 
reason's name, who shall wonder that auch an 
unparalleled warfare of, nn righteousness aargres- 
sively fiahting for itsoit', against the most just 
and righteous cause, could liave the le:ist possi- 
bility of success? 'Under the irresistible logic 
of the'se facts, I said when the rebellion first 
commenced, that God and brave souls would see 
to it that the right shall triumph ! I saw the 
doom: of slavery at tjie very start of the war for 
slavery. I, never hate had a doubt how the con- 
test would efid, tho'ugh I could not tell when it 
would end. So no, disaster has shaken mV faith; 
no momentary triumph of 'the rebellion has ev- 
er shattered my hopes; and terrible as the 
scburge of the -War has been in allTts forms and 
features, both to the iSorth and the SouUi, and 
more especially so to the latter, I have said, and 
still say, that the noblest form of national free- 
dom has been permitted to contend with the 
worst form of national slavery ; and that by the 
issue' the question is to be settled for liberty, anil 
a purely democratic s61f government, against 
not only the question of slavery atthc South, 
hut' for free gbvernment and free institutions all 
O^er the world. It is the great initiatory war 
fdr'f?eedotn for ''all people— 'a'nd the issue of the 
c'otitest here, is to be the issue everywhere; and 
so'itis, that on the other side of the Atlantic 
Oc6iin, millions are watolilng it with a more 
breathless anxiety than our.selves ; and mon- 
archs tremble! and aristocracies viint their rage ! 



'•nit millions on millions ofsouls'hiive one beat- 
ing heart, one hope, one holy desire ; and as' 
true as God lives, the concentrated, and conse- 
crated prayer of those millions of souls, that 
our cause, which is their cause, shall succeed, is 
registered already in the Eternal Decrees— it 
shall be accomplislicd ! '. |-, 

I said more than two years, agp, in the second 
sermon I preached in this city, frohi the text, 
"The morning cometh and also the night," that 
dark as was then our national nigtit, and it 
might grow darker still ; yet, that the morning 
of its deliverance was as sure as t]ie niglit of it.'* 
darkness. Well, as it is alway.s ''darkest .just 
before day," so now we know thut the radiant 
morning dawns; the assassination of our I'rc.ii- 
dent is the dark hour before the break of glori- 
ous morning! Oh what an . hour of darkness! 
But the gloom is parting its sombre folds. The 
stone is being rolled away from the sepulchre, — 
liberty''sresusitation commences from this hour. 
I see the certainty of. its resurrected and glorified 
life. 1 know that .justice ahall be vindicated, 
I feel wbat twenty millions of my countrymen 
feel in this time of our grief, that we arc being 
baptized with, the fire of national regencTation • 
So let the furnace glow, till all the dro^ and 
alloy are consumed; till the fine gold of our 
national freedom, which slavery has dimmed, 
shall have liberty's face like that of an angel, 
clearly and fully reflected therefrom. Now, 
you and I feel that not only A-merica, shall rise 
in the grandeur of a pure democracy— the peo- 
ple governed and governing themsel,V|Cs— the law 
makers obeying the laws ; but on this continent, 
from the Northern Seas to tlie Gulf of Mexico, 
and clear on to Cape Horn, raonarcliy, aristoc- 
racy, and every oppressive, dwarfing and en- 
slaving poM'cr shall die! This is tlie sublime 
logic of events; ri<j%t is coming to he miijht ! 
God is for it— noble minds arc for it ; humanity 
shall feel it thrilling like grand echoes all through 
its great beating heart of hope! Russia siivsit 
in the emancipation of her millions of serfs by 
an absolute monarch, whose edict of freedom is 
greater than himself, and the most glorious act 
that any monarch ever performed ; and an hun- 
dred millions of people in the Old World, watch- 
ing the issues of our struggle, and to wlnnn the 
news of the President's assa.ssination shall, come 
these ahall swear by all their detestation of the 
great insult to humanity's rights, that the cause 
of American Liberty is the cause of the world : 
I and so shall their prayers, and all their soul 
yearnings lie with us, an electric power, a mag- 
net mind force, helping to vanquish tha wrong 
and help on the right ! The national cloud of 
grief shall turn its "silver lining." Last 
Wednesday, there was the sublime event of 
twenty millions of souls in mourning for the 
death of one man ; all smitten with the same 
grief; party feeling hushed; all political rancor 
slumbering; the fever of differences calmed ; 
and these people all unite in the funeral servi- 
ces to honor and respect the martyred "man of 
the people," How this mighty, surging, nation- 
al enV-'tibli, swelling in solemn dirge; spoken in 
funeral sermons and orations, in svory town and 
State— how this sublime spectacle shall go forth 
with its prophet voice, speaking lu power and 
working with irresif^table force. 

I have been asked during the past wee It, why 
it is that so many good men, claiming the name 



of democfncv, buve been so strongly in syinpii 
Ihy with the Sbuth und its peculiu'r iiisstitUtioti, 
uiid wliy, duitliy: ttilM rebollioii, tlluy have still 
expressed that syiiip'-ithy? I answer, thai by h 
most siiigular tniiii of eircnnistunees, that sytn- 
Dathy was begotten, and by a nior^ singuhir lial- 
liu'inatl(^h, lias that "syiup'athy been retained. 
Demiicraaj is a talistnanic term and idea of ihc 
people-;^ it is, in its fullest signilieance. ah in 
stiiict t'V the rights und privileges of the people — 
it all.iws no aristocracy to rule and goveVu the 
majolity; it allows no monopoly to eVeate privi- 
leges for the few which are not !>hared iii by the 
many— it is tlic people ruling, aiid ruled by the 
people," and as it grows and deepens in harmony 
with an enlightened public moral sentiment, the 
people become a luvv unto themselveV* — respect- 
ing themselves, and dcmai'id that the greatest 
iroodofthe greatest number, shall nfot infringe 
Uflon thn absolute rights of the least number. 
This is the ideal utid genius of oiir government 
in 'its ireo northern aspects, unallied with the 
sla\"ie- making aristocracy of the South. In my 
eul-liest tiajollections, this princi file of democracy 
had a strong party, and was sensitively jetilous 
of its rights, and strenuously opposed money 
monopoly iu every possible shape— High tariff, 
and gigantic corporations were its mortal foes. 
Andrew Jackson was its embodiment and ex- 
ponent, and ideal man. Now, Southern politi- 
cians, although slaveHMders and aristocrats, 
saw their chance to wield the sceptre of power 
if an alliance otfensive and defensive could be 
fi'rmed with this numerous party at the North, 
Tariff for manufacturers' interest at the North 
Was against their interest ; in this they and the 
democracy were one, .ho that alliance was formed 
and numerous political battles fought, and vic- 
tories won by that alliance, cemented a very 
titrong friendship between them, while the inter- 
ests of th<) South werfe kept intact. NoW the 
Northern democracy lost sight of the absolute 
conditic*ris of the case ; they did not see that 
while Ihey opposed monopolies at the North, 
that they were allied to, and in 'every way as- 
sisting to xire'itc and strengthen both a gigantic 
monopoly and aristocracy at the South ; and, as 
long as by their alliance they could make sure 
of presidential elections, and get control of gov- 
ernment offices, all other ideas, thoughts, feel 
Ings or principles were entirely ignored ; so you' 
see that the slave power, the very antipodes of 
democracy, seduced the noble principle, and the' 
glorious name, as wicked men sometimes "steal 
Ihelivery of the Court of Heaven to serve the 
•devil in,"— and with mosit tenacious ^rtisp has 
held her naihe, thoUgh the vital spirit haslong 
since died from out the name. Now thousands 
of good men cling to the name of democracy, as 
the word expressive of their ideal, and by the 
most astonishing of hallucinations think that 
slavery and deiriocracy are one. Pe-asus 'yokeu 
to the ox, in the poet's fable, was never so un- 
oqualed a match ; and why democracy hiis not' 
done what the noble Tegasus did, by refusing to 
draw With the ox. can only be accounted for on 
the ground that this latter Pegasus must have 
been blind in one eye at least, if not in both, 
and did not see the name and nature of the 
•creature tu which he was yoked. But now let 
■me tell you that the .scales and fihns of obscura- 
ted vihion are dropping off— the spell is being 
'bi'Okon- the rebellion roveala the creature ; and 



this dark and damnihg deed of assassination i.s 
making Pegasus fuel the horns as well as see the 
Uialigtiaut Ugliness of the efcaturo to wliicli hO 
has so long been allied. And I tell you that 
henceforth it shall be clearly seen, and gloriously 
understood, that a democracy worthy of the 
name, or embodying a spark of its grand and 
glorious principles, has no possible atlinity with 
an aristocracy built and perpetuated on the 
slavyry of blacks, and the worse than slavery of 
the masses of the poor whites ; and where tho 
select few feed and fatten, and grow insolent, 
and heaven and humanity- defying, on the sweat 
and toil of the many. Why, one of the boldest 
blasphemies that tie rebels have uttered durintr 
the war, has been that of saying that they were 
"fighting for freedom," "strngling for liberty" — 
this has been the great lie all along that should 
have blistered their lips as with a coal of fire! 
But the lie is dying— they have stabbed it again ; 
so it shall not deceive any more. And now 
shall not devKKTuqi become disenthralled from 
the foul embrace "of its seducer J Shall it not 
rise and be glorified in a redemption of its name 
from the disreputable company it has no long 
kept'.' Two great parties may ever exist in our 
country as checks and balances on each other, 
but in reason and humanity's name, may neith- 
er of them ever be allied to a giant wrong, like 
that which Is now biting itseTf and x'lying by ita 
own poison ! 

Yo\i may think, some of yon, my hearers, that 
I speak in too plain terms, and that 1 go beyond 
the proper sphere of my duties on this Sunday 
evening; but 1 tell you again, ^that it were a sin 
to be silent in the perils and hopes of this hour; 
and wJlh Martin Luther, who said that he would 
go to the Diet, at Worms, "though every tile on 
the hduse-tops were a devil to oppose"— so now 
I would speak, and give undisguised and honest 
expression to my thoughts, if every shingle on 
this church were a devil bidding me cease. 
"Th re is a tide in the atTnirs of men, 

Which, il taken at the flood, 

Leads on to fortune," 

So it is with nations; and as this is the flood tide 
of our national affairs, let us see to it that all of 
us so speak and act, as that the fortune of the 
national salvation shall jbe secured, 

I am not angry — I breathe no spirit of revenge 
— I harbor no hatred against men, but I feel 
strong and clear for thei,right— clearer, stvonger 
and calmer than ever before; and I have regis- 
tered the determination, as thousands of othera 
have done the pa st week, that I will live for the 
right, labor for tho just, and resist the oppres- 
sive, in all right and honorable ways, so long as 
I live. The eievatioli of the masses, and the 
emancipation of the world from all kinds of op- 
pression, this is mine, this is yours, and my 
country's mission, which is written and declared 
in the irresistible and sublime logic of passing 
events. The peoples' President is murdered ! but 
the peoples' cause lives, and will live and grow 
purer and giandcr the longer it lives! Hoar it, 
tyrants, all over the world; hear it ye who would 
live on tho toil and sweat of the many; hear it 
ye short sighted powers of evil; ye cannot assas- 
sinate a righteous cause 1 You may battle lor 
the wrung, imd tliousaiiils may illo lu the contest, 
but all that is pure, and holy , and just, and true, 
belongs to the eternal and imp^-ishable; these 
oui..not die! for it is written, '•surely tho wrath 



of man shall praise Thee; the remainder of wrath 
shalt Thou restrain." Now I pee the cloud folds 
of this great national bereavment parting, and 
eloft, through the bright opening, the ungel of 



liberty waves her hanm^r and bcckouH the nation 
onward, and higher, till the nznre blue of GodV 
sVy. w'itii all the stars shining in beauty, shall bo 
over one people, vnited, happy a^id free ! 



-fclVly'13 



